For a 5K, in my experience, the first mile should be mildly uncomfortable but not too bad.

The second mile should start to hurt in earnest. Here is where you should push the pace (IMO) just a bit faster than seems wise.

The third mile is all about guts and should hurt all the way through. You should (or I always do) feel like you're going to die for the last 400 m or so.

Thanks for this description, that really helps. I'm not sure I've ever pushed it that hard in a race, but I'm going to try to give it a shot next weekend. I think my last mile probably feels like what you are saying for the 2nd mile. I may try to run it without my GPS, or maybe with my GPS audio cues turned off at least. If nothing else it will be an interesting expirement, I'm sure I'll have many more 5K's to run and almost no matter what this one is going to end up a PR for now anyway.

As far as over analyzing my running, that's pretty much my job so I over analyze everything. I've spent 10 minutes deciding on which dental floss to buy before. I'll enjoy analyzing my GPS track after the fact even if I end up with the audio cues turned off during the run.

LOL, do you want to see my spreadsheet I worked on this summer during my Low HR base building period where I factored in Temperature, Relative Humidity, Dew Point, Wind Speed and Direction, Sky Conditions, Altitude, Elevation Climb, Shoes, and of course my Heart Rate to get an Effort Indicator to see if I was actually improving or not. I ran the numbers on a 5 day and 7 day moving average to average out any bad days. I also had a column for anything else I could think of for comments where I could put in things like if I didn't get much sleep the night before or if I had done a lot of manual labor the day before or anything like that.

Being a newcomer to running, I'm sure there are 100 things my body is telling me that I can't understand yet, but I'm trying to use every objective measure that I can think of to evaluate my performance and hopefully help me improve. It's very hard for me to work with the subjective stuff. With my heart rate monitor broken the last week, I'm pretty sure I've been running my easy runs too fast again, it's very hard for me to really tell what an easy run should feel like.

I may not be doing a very good job of it, but I'm trying to analyze it as much as I can objectively.

LOL, do you want to see my spreadsheet I worked on this summer during my Low HR base building period where I factored in Temperature, Relative Humidity, Dew Point, Wind Speed and Direction, Sky Conditions, Altitude, Elevation Climb, Shoes, and of course my Heart Rate to get an Effort Indicator to see if I was actually improving or not. I ran the numbers on a 5 day and 7 day moving average to average out any bad days. I also had a column for anything else I could think of for comments where I could put in things like if I didn't get much sleep the night before or if I had done a lot of manual labor the day before or anything like that.

Being a newcomer to running, I'm sure there are 100 things my body is telling me that I can't understand yet, but I'm trying to use every objective measure that I can think of to evaluate my performance and hopefully help me improve. It's very hard for me to work with the subjective stuff. With my heart rate monitor broken the last week, I'm pretty sure I've been running my easy runs too fast again, it's very hard for me to really tell what an easy run should feel like.

I may not be doing a very good job of it, but I'm trying to analyze it as much as I can objectively.

My brain is starting to hurt. I think I need to run now.

The pain that hurts the worse is the imagined pain. One of the most difficult arts of racing is learning to ignore the imagined pain and just live with the present pain (which is always bearable.) - Jeff

LOL, do you want to see my spreadsheet I worked on this summer during my Low HR base building period where I factored in Temperature, Relative Humidity, Dew Point, Wind Speed and Direction, Sky Conditions, Altitude, Elevation Climb, Shoes, and of course my Heart Rate to get an Effort Indicator to see if I was actually improving or not. I ran the numbers on a 5 day and 7 day moving average to average out any bad days. I also had a column for anything else I could think of for comments where I could put in things like if I didn't get much sleep the night before or if I had done a lot of manual labor the day before or anything like that.

Being a newcomer to running, I'm sure there are 100 things my body is telling me that I can't understand yet, but I'm trying to use every objective measure that I can think of to evaluate my performance and hopefully help me improve. It's very hard for me to work with the subjective stuff. With my heart rate monitor broken the last week, I'm pretty sure I've been running my easy runs too fast again, it's very hard for me to really tell what an easy run should feel like.

I may not be doing a very good job of it, but I'm trying to analyze it as much as I can objectively.

In my defense I did only fill that stuff out for a month and a half before I said screw it and just kept running at my target HR regardless of all the other stuff.

I'm also sure that whether I run at a 10:20 pace and 136 HR or a 10:00 pace and a 142 HR really isn't going to matter much on the grand scheme of things, I would be improving either way, the miles are important, but it sure is hard for me to tell the difference. To me they are both easy runs. If you say conversationally easy for a run that could be anywhere from a 10:20 pace 136 HR for me to about a 9:40 pace 149 HR, I could probably push that a little more even and that's assuming the same conditions. Those are both easy runs, but also they are different. I guess one would be very easy and one would be just easy? The whole subjective thing is over rated! Give me some real numbers!

In my defense I did only fill that stuff out for a month and a half before I said screw it and just kept running at my target HR regardless of all the other stuff.

I'm also sure that whether I run at a 10:20 pace and 136 HR or a 10:00 pace and a 142 HR really isn't going to matter much on the grand scheme of things, I would be improving either way, the miles are important, but it sure is hard for me to tell the difference. To me they are both easy runs. If you say conversationally easy for a run that could be anywhere from a 10:20 pace 136 HR for me to about a 9:40 pace 149 HR, I could probably push that a little more even and that's assuming the same conditions. Those are both easy runs, but also they are different. I guess one would be very easy and one would be just easy? The whole subjective thing is over rated! Give me some real numbers!

Sure. Go with that.

You know what's not easy? Reading the title of this thread without going nuts. Awkward. Sorry. It's been driving me crazy since the thread started.

Not trying to sidetrack this thread. I was mainly interested in the same exact question and think I got my answer for the most part from kentrose's post, but here's the spreadsheet that I was using. I guess it is really an efficiency indicator, not an effort indicator as the bigger the number the better you are doing.

I wasn't completely happy with it and think it could be refined considerably. I had a limit on the difference between actual temperature and dew point of 25 degrees, but I think you could do some work with heat index numbers to get a little closer than working off of dew point.

Also I didn't have the altitude changes factored into my computation, they were just there for reference. Same with wind speed and direction.

An example of what I was trying to achieve with the spreadsheet would be on 5/8 I ran 6 miles at an 11:27 avg pace and 134 avg HR, compared to on 6/1 when I ran 6 miles at an 11:25 pace and a 138 avg HR. It wasn't that I was in worse shape on 6/1 than I was on 5/8, it was because I was running at 77 degrees on 6/1 vs. 53 degrees on 5/8.

Another example would be runing 7 miles on 5/23 at a 10:56 pace and 137 avg HR, compared to 6/12 running 7 miles at 11:53 pace and 136 avg HR. On 5/23 I was running at 643' elevation and on 6/12 I was running at 6,925' elevation. That trumped the fact that I was running at 74 degrees on 5/23 vs. 54 degrees on 6/12, although my spreadsheet didn't calculate that. I also could have just been having a bad day.

When it is all said and done it can be computed by just using common sense (you run slower when it's hot out and when you increase in elevation, you run faster when it's cool and you drop elevation) and the spreadsheet was a hassle so I just quit keeping track of it though.

The best sign that you are under-analyzing is that you can't see that you are in shape to run sub7s for 5k.

You say a page back you have a "tiny chance" of breaking 23:00, but it's as clear as day to me that sub23 is in the bag and that on a good day you will run under 22.

Especially early in your running career, performance gains come in leaps that really can't be predicted from prior workouts. I know this from years of working with beginning runners.

As for how race pace should feel? First mile strong and relaxed, second mile trust your fitness and keep the rhythm, third mile don't hesitate--compete! You probably won't nail a 100% race effort your first time because racing takes practice and above all -- concentration! Sounds to me like you are likely to have concentration issues during the race, unless your racing mentality is different from your message board persona (which it's likely to be.)

I'll admit that I think I have sub 23:00 in the bag, but I'm sure not seeing sub 7:00 pace for the entire 5K yet. Even if I leave my watch at home, they are going to have the splits showing at Mile 1 and if I see a number that starts with 6, I think I might soil myself. (My fastest mile I've run in the last 20+ years was this last Wednesday on that Tempo run at 7:30).

I'm one of those guys that tells himself the movie is going to suck before I go so I won't be disappointed. LOL

I'm not sure I can process and compute all the logic and reason written above... but let me just say this.

Race day magic is real. It's the running gods gift to you for putting in the miles. Don't question it or try to reason it away. You can't create a formula to quantify it. You can't aways predict when it will appear, but when it does, it's a beautiful thing.

I'm not sure I can process and compute all the logic and reason written above... but let me just say this.

Race day magic is real. It's the running gods gift to you for putting in the miles. Don't question it or try to reason it away. You can't create a formula to quantify it. You can't aways predict when it will appear, but when it does, it's a beautiful thing.

Unless you have to poop halfway through the race. Then the magic can be elusive.